ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Sunday asked all stakeholders to ensure resolution of the residual issues in order to commence intra-Afghan negotiations without delay.

“The importance of seizing this historic opportunity cannot be stressed enough,” the minister said through his official Twitter account.

Mr Qureshi said the collective efforts so far had succeeded in advancing the peace process to the current unprecedented point. His remarks came ahead of long-awaited intra-Afghan talks, which are expected to begin in Doha (Qatar) soon.

It is believed that the release of the first batch of 80 Taliban prisoners from among the remaining 400 convicted in different cases has brightened the prospects for the talks believed to be crucial for sustainable peace in the war-torn country.

Negotiations likely to start in Doha soon

Under the Doha agreement between the Afghan Taliban and the US, the Afghan government was to release 5,000 prisoners in return for 1,000 mainly security personnel freed by insurgents. About 4,600 of the militants were previously released in batches, but Kabul was reluctant to set free the remaining 400 who the government described as “dangerous”.

The matter was later referred to Loya Jirga, which endorsed their release and President Ashraf Ghani subsequently issued a presidential decree for setting them free. The process, however, has taken a few days, which has created misgivings that Kabul may be dragging its feet on the issue.

Diplomatic circles are hopeful about the early commencement of negotiations, but at the same time they warn that crucial time has already been lost.

One of the diplomats privy to the developments had recently confirmed to Dawn that a lot of groundwork had been done by both sides for the structure and setting up of the secretariat for the talks. Yet, he added, there was no formal agenda for the inaugural session and the two sides had drawn up their priorities.

While there is an understanding that there would be ‘no guarantors’ but only ‘observers’ at the negotiations, a crucial question expected to come up during the process will pertain to the ceasefire.

Taliban’s political spokesman Suhail Shaheen had, in an interview earlier this week, said: “It is clearly written in the agreement that ceasefire will be one of the topics to be debated and agreed upon during intra-Afghan negotiations.”

The diplomat said a lot of focus would be on the ceasefire, with the key issue being how it would materialise.

Published in Dawn, August 17th, 2020